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Twinkies Defense Is Private Equity's Pension Offense: Street Whispers

NEW YORK (
TheStreet) -- The
liquidation filing of
Hostess Brands -- the maker of consumer fattening favorites such as Ho Hos and Twinkies - also means that Americans may soon gorge themselves on the company's massive pension liabilities.

Hostess' liquidation -- just like the recent bankruptcies of well known companies like
Friendly Ice Cream and
Eddie Bauer -- raises the prospect that sophisticated private equity and distressed debt hedge fund investors are using courts to cast off unwanted pension obligations on U.S. taxpayers and put a losing investment back on the track.

Consider that also on Friday, the
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation disclosed that its U.S. pension plan insurance deficit grew to a record $34 billion this year, the biggest shortfall in the federal agency's history. PBGC guarantees employee pension plans after a company goes belly up, securing the retirement of roughly 43 million U.S. workers.

While PBGC doesn't take government money directly - it's funded by way of insurance premiums and portfolio returns - the agency's head said on Friday that a growing deficit raises the prospect of taxpayer support.

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In a statement released with the agency's bleak outlook, PBGC Director Joshua Gotbaum attributed the plan's shortfall on an inability to set premiums for member companies and noted that the agency's deficit may put taxpayers at risk for the first time in its 38-year history.

"PBGC may face for the first time the need for taxpayer funds," Gotbaum said on Friday.

So what is the tie-in between Hostess Brands liquidation and PBGC's dire financial outlook?

Were a bankruptcy judge to approve Hostess's plans, it's likely that most of the near 18,500 Hostess workers will lose their job and pensions with the company.

As part of Hostess Brands Friday liquidation filing, the company said it would terminate its pension, with roughly 2,300 employees in the company's single-employer plan falling under PBGC's guaranty, according to an agency statement. The company's larger multi-employer plan may also get some PBGC support, while potentially not needing a full guarantee because losses could be mutualized.

On Monday, an agreement between Hostess and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union forestalls a liquidation until at least Wednesday, as both parties return to the negotiation table on a pay and benefit deal that could keep the company in business.

The size of Hostess Brands employees claim to PBCG could also illustrate how big money investors are using the bankruptcy process to shirk financial obligations on a federal agency as a means to salvage or profit on an investment.

For instance, in Hostess Brands Jan. 2012
bankruptcy filing, the company's biggest unsecured creditor was The Confectionery Union & Industry International Pension Fund, a unionized employee plan with a near $944 million pension claim.

Further down the list of financial losers in Hostess Brands bankruptcy and potential dissolution are the company's hedge fund investors, which include
Monarch Alternative Capital,
Ripplewood Holdings and
Silver Point Capital.

The size of the near $1 billion union pension claim is likely, in part, because Hostess's hedge fund owners stopped contributing to the company's pension plan in August 2011, as a result of bitter labor negotiations and deteriorating finances.

A Monday
report from
Fortune Magazine indicates private equity firm
Sun Capital might bid on Hostess Brands as a going concern. However, the report doesn't specify how pension obligations would be dealt with following the Friday termination of employee plans.

Sun Capital's interest may very well underscore how private equity firms use PBGC guarantees to pave the way for profitable investments. In January, the Center for Economic Policy Research
detailed how Sun Capital used
Friendly's Ice Cream's 2011 bankruptcy to wipe 6,000 employee pensions from the company's books. In that deal, the PBGC accused the buyout firm of fraud.

Law firms such as
McDermott Will & Emery see a different Sun Capital deal involving milling company
Scott Brass and a legal suit with a Teamsters pension as a potential
blueprint for how to shirk pension liability in buyout investments.

On Monday,
Flowers Foods(FLO - Get Report) increased its line of credit, in a move analysts speculated might pave the way for a bid on some Hostess assets. Pabst Blue Ribbon owner C. Dean Metropoulos & Co. is also rumored as an interested party, among scores of prospective bidders for Hostess or its individual brands.

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